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Sometimes I just have quick questions I'd like to get some feedback on but I feel like I just can't put in the Everything Else forum and they're not really worth a thread of their own here. So here's one to get started with:

I recently saw a former friend of mine passing around one of those online petitions and they wrote a passionate little personal endorsement for it before sending it around. The purpose was to get a law passed that would allow paramedics and firefighters to carry firearms.

My question is... why? In what situation am I going to need a paramedic to start a shootout with armed villains? The argument was that they were first responders and could be in hostile situations, but isn't that what the police are for? It just made me realize what a gun obsessed culture we live in where we even want our EMTs to be armed with deadly force.

Anyone else get the feeling the whole idea of needing to declare war pretty much disappeared when nuclear weapons showed up?

That has its roots in civil war reconstruction, and post WWII under the UN. Post Civil War the president as commander and chief was given broader powers to respond to threats to the US, even abroad. Under the treaty signed upon the creation of the UN and NATO, the US with other coalition forces could enter combat without formal declaration (like Bosnia, the 1990 Persian Gulf).

Post Civil War, and further opened after WWII, the president was given broader powers to act in his capacity as commander and chief. In essence, the president could and has sent troops in the US, its neighbors, and to foreign soils when threats to the US are shown. Congress has to power to challenge this presidential action, to withdraw support for the troops-resupply, reinforcements, etc. Congress confronted the President in this manner for Vietnam forcing the Military to plan a withdrawal.

So far as any scholar would say, largely these laws are clarifications and strengthening to what is already spelled out in the constitution. The president commands the armed forces, but congress supplies, recruits, and funds them. And they allowed the president to act expediently absent some of the furor seen in the 19th century-Jefferson's "war" on pirates for example.

Aren't there also industrial implications to declaring war? I seem to remember being told by someone that if war is declared various appliances and car manufacturing are limited in some way.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
PSN: DemosthenesHPW

That is a good question. A good deal of what both FDR and Lincoln with congressional approval did during the Civil War and WWII were later declared unconstitutional. Seizure of roads, rail, telegraph were not among them. But during war time the president and congress do have broad authority. Not to say the ends justify the means, but at the conclusion of the War of 1812, Civil War, WWII when these serious actions were taken, there was a rule of law to return to.

Now for me, I find a juicier issue using war time actions, even within the constitution itself (Denial of writs of habeas corpus under GW Bush, NSA and CIA wire tapping, dodging FOIA requests) without a formal declaration of war. In that lies the real problem post WWII, through the Cold War. And that is what a lot of constitutional scholars find troubling is taking war power action domestically without a war as defined in the Constitution.

KG: Did either of the Sedition Acts' constitutionality depend on states of declared war? While the first one seemed like it could get by because the Constitution still seemed a little fuzzy, I was always surprised the second stood at all. I'm talking about the ones in 1798 and then 1918, if there's an ambiguity or subtlety I'm missing.

"The number of things I’ve seen on the internet that I wish I could unsee has gotten so large that I’m beginning to forget them. So, I win, I guess." -First World Problems

Adams Signed the Alien and Sedition acts well after the Armistice with England, and well before the War of 1812. And it was wonderfully abused. Adams also had a stacked court on his side.
For WWI I know that Justice Holmes had some choice dissent for many cases. His dissents carry more weight than a lot of majority opinions.

We are still under much of the WWI law and it played in nicely in trying Soviet Spies, Foreign Agents. When it got troubling are the instances like in 2003 when a former CIA agent gave classified information to a NY Times reporter, and in his book. It was under this law we got OW Holmes' famous statement that free speech does not cover a right to shout "FIRE" in a crowded theater. The rationale being that publishing material or speaking to enemies could lead to death and losses.

A political party leader encouraged young men to contest being drafted into WWI, arguing the draft unconstitutional.

The Espionage Act from WWI is still in place, in a form.

What I think separates the two would be Adams liked to have his political rivals jailed, Jefferson pardoned hundreds. The WWI law has been used rather sparingly, and with good court guidance. The last high profile case was Jeff Sterling, who wrote a book and did a NY Times interview detailing still classified information during his tenure in the CIA.

You look on Bill Maher and see the america hating liberal who will take any negative statement about another country and point out how America is worse; newswoman is raped in Egypt but he turns the conversation to how horrible America is on women.

From my experience with those I would consider "far left" I've noticed many are almost isolationist in their views. In such that they generally want the US to stop policing the world and focus almost exclusively on domestic issues. In this you could say that Maher tries to bring all of the righteous anger that many seem to easily direct at other nations and focus it on vaguely similar issues at home as he seems to be more of a "fix ourselves first and let the rest of the world worry about itself" kinda' guy. Almost libertarian in that respect though he'd be more for turning internally and letting the government help fix things whereas libertarians would like to turn internally and tell the government to let the people fix it themselves.

Mind you, I enjoy watching Maher most of the time but any time you have someone who's way out on one side of the political spectrum it tends to serve as more of a distraction for the overall conversation and as a target of scorn for the other side of the scale. Just like people mention Limbaugh and Beck in the same breath as Maher and Olbermann, it allows a lot of people to completely ignore one side of an argument just because they have some examples of the "crazies" on the other side.

3) He's been frequently, and disgustingly misogynist for his entire career

Guess I didn't watch him as much as I thought. I used to watch politically incorrect every now and then and some of his old stand-up stuff. Of course when I was in 8th grade I watched Rush Limbaugh every once in a while and thought he was smart so... yeah. Guess I didn't pick up on a lot of stuff in the past.

Going full circle to my question. Why is it in this arena not only are there people who look to and want to be offended to pick a fight? Why is it so prevalent, even rewarded?

Rush Limbaugh is great at this. The War on X-mas is a lot like this. You look on Bill Maher and see the america hating liberal who will take any negative statement about another country and point out how America is worse; newswoman is raped in Egypt but he turns the conversation to how horrible America is on women.

source on highlighted? While he's brutal on religion he's pretty fair in his use of calling stupid stupid even if its in America.

Well for me, I was more talking that Maher often has guests who will ignore many international current events, and turn the conversation on how bad America is. It is often the mask of America cannot "judge" actions that other cultures take because America is also horrible. Similar comments were made on the show when they attempted to discuss Bananas thrown at Freddie Adou, the liberal commentator shifted to how racist America is. And due to the splosion of this latest rape joke, I cannot locate the Tahrir Square part.

Penn Jillette summed up Real Time very well, there is a conservative nut, a liberal nut, and a plain old nut for balance.

Well for me, I was more talking that Maher often has guests who will ignore many international current events, and turn the conversation on how bad America is. It is often the mask of America cannot "judge" actions that other cultures take because America is also horrible. Similar comments were made on the show when they attempted to discuss Bananas thrown at Freddie Adou, the liberal commentator shifted to how racist America is. And due to the splosion of this latest rape joke, I cannot locate the Tahrir Square part.

Penn Jillette summed up Real Time very well, there is a conservative nut, a liberal nut, and a plain old nut for balance.

Is there any scientific evidence that humans have this fuzzy thing called "free will?" Is there anything refuting Sam Harris' TED talk on the illusion of free will? I'm interested in the determinism debate, but want to know if science has turned up anything new lately.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Let them eat gay wedding cake.

Reaper81 wrote:

I am half-gay on my mother's side but I ethnically self-identify as "closeted lumber mill worker."

The strongest evidence I know of is our species' capacity to adapt, invent, migrate, and change. Compared to other intelligent species (wolves, great apes, whales and dolphins, corvids) humanity has been shown to have evolved to make decisions. We do not have an embargo on tools, on morality, social structure.

Given my choice in criminal law, I have an admitted interest in there being free will.

The strongest evidence I know of is our species' capacity to adapt, invent, migrate, and change. Compared to other intelligent species (wolves, great apes, whales and dolphins, corvids) humanity has been shown to have evolved to make decisions. We do not have an embargo on tools, on morality, social structure.

As far as society is concerned, we (at the very least) act as though we have and believe in free will because if we didn't, then society could not exist. Valentine in... I want to say the 3rd book of the original Ender Quartet (not including the new Ender stuff Card's putting out) had a really interesting way of explaining this that I wish I could find, but I can't be goofing off with both GWJ and my Kindle at work at the same time.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
PSN: DemosthenesHPW

Sam's neuroscience work is still fairly new so I don't think there's been any formal scientific retort to his papers quite yet.

The trouble with the decision making KG refers to is that Sam's work suggests those decisions are not actually being made by our concious minds but rather that they are made and our mind justifies them after the fact by making up a story about how it was reasoned out or chosen.

However this illusion is an important part of maintaining the general illusion of 'self', not only do we probably not have free will but(scientifically at least) there's probably no 'you' to have free will in the first place. As Bruce Hood points out though these are

(...)illusion[s] we must continue to embrace to live happily in human society.

I don't think that quote is true for all individuals, but probably for most.

To the moon wrote:

The ending isn't any more important than any of the moments leading to it.

I'm certainly not disputing that the belief in free will is a very necessary part of a functioning society, at least for the moment. But that alone does not prove that it exists. Neither does the fact that we adapt and change. A computer program can be written that rewrites itself and changes its own behavior.

I didn't think there was anything new in the scientific area.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Let them eat gay wedding cake.

Reaper81 wrote:

I am half-gay on my mother's side but I ethnically self-identify as "closeted lumber mill worker."

The strongest evidence I know of is our species' capacity to adapt, invent, migrate, and change. Compared to other intelligent species (wolves, great apes, whales and dolphins, corvids) humanity has been shown to have evolved to make decisions. We do not have an embargo on tools, on morality, social structure.

Those animals make decisions, but they don't seem to have our level of ability to engage in complex communication. I was reading an article recently that indicated that while chimps can figure out problems at least at the level of a 3-year old, you can't tell a chimp how to solve a problem. It has to figure out on its own. Being able to distribute learning throughout a population through communication is a huge advantage.

Also, inventing the concept of a narrative allows people to communicate ideas and information across time and distance. That's something else those animals don't seem to be able to do.

So even if you have a hyper-intelligent chimp that figures out how to solve a complex math problem that's beyond us, that's not going to do the chimp species any good. Because that information will die with that chimp, and he won't be able to teach other chimps to solve that math problem. At least that was the idea of the scientists quoted in the article.

Well I am reminded when the human genome project was in its infancy. The talk in sociological circles was of mapping the genetics of crime, of infidelity, putting aside Nature vs Nurture once in for all.

What I see more often than not, are these studies on culture, environment, genetics, etc. showing probabilities and likelihoods. To translate that to determinism is a leap.

I'm certainly not disputing that the belief in free will is a very necessary part of a functioning society, at least for the moment. But that alone does not prove that it exists. Neither does the fact that we adapt and change. A computer program can be written that rewrites itself and changes its own behavior.

I think the computer program is an interesting correlary, but I'l ignore it for now.

Given your word choice above, I would assert that free will's proven existence is not necessary for our species's continued reliance on it as a concept. This would put it in the same nebulous category as race (ignoring the small portion of that concept that has been proven genetic) and color.

That is to say, until we've mapped out the decision making process of every single human mind such that fortune tellers are scientists with an unfailing degree of accuracy, free will is a perfectly satisfactory method of describing that process. Besides, even if sentience is an illusion, it's a healthy one for the progression of our species.

There seems to be some weird misconceptions about determinism being voiced here. By saying that there is no free will, we aren't saying that there is some book out there with the results to all our decisions, just that how we make decisions is determined by our personality and the sum of our past decisions and experiences. When I decided to bring salad to work this morning instead of pasta, I seemingly made that choice of my own free will, but it was actually the result of all my previous decisions up to that point, and if you could rewind time or peak into some identical alternate dimension, I would ALWAYS make that same decision to bring salad to work today. It's a largely unconscious process masquerading as free will.

I think we do not know enough at this point to make a conclusion either way. For my own sanity, I assume that there is a measure of free will that results from the emergent properties of consciousness.

Of course free will exists. Otherwise, no badly clogged drain would ever be cleaned, because that's icky. Overriding a basic desire like that (avoid the gross, smelly catchpipe) for an anticipated future benefit (a working sink) is as free as free will gets.

It may not be the conscious mind making the decisions, but just because you reach a decision nonverbally doesn't make it A) not you, or B) not free.

Seth touched on this. I think problem 1 is nailing down the concept/term of free will. By that I mean independent decision making of the individual. Another might say it is about perfect freedom at all times to exact our whims.

I do not pretend that my family, my genes, the neighborhood I grew up in, the food I eat, etc plays no role in how I behave, in the choices I make. I will state here and now, my concept of free will is tied with autonomy and personal freedom to choose.

Seth touched on this. I think problem 1 is nailing down the concept/term of free will. By that I mean independent decision making of the individual. Another might say it is about perfect freedom at all times to exact our whims.

I do not pretend that my family, my genes, the neighborhood I grew up in, the food I eat, etc plays no role in how I behave, in the choices I make. I will state here and now, my concept of free will is tied with autonomy and personal freedom to choose.

...and you are free to choose as you see fit, but ultimately how you react to that choice and the decision you make is predetermined by your life up to that point.

Of course free will exists. Otherwise, no badly clogged drain would ever be cleaned, because that's icky. Overriding a basic desire like that (avoid the gross, smelly catchpipe) for an anticipated future benefit (a working sink) is as free as free will gets.

I don't really see how that proves the existence of free will. If I use a drain snake to clean the drain, does that mean that it has free will too? If I program a robot to clean drains, does the robot have free will?

Now you could respond that the drain snake and the robot didn't choose to clean the drain, but I can't really prove that I chose to do it either. I think I made that choice, but how can I know that I'm not just applying my own narrative to a completely deterministic sequence of events?